Family Issues: The Wrong Meaning of Christmas

Ah Christmas, the gifts, the food, the gatherings, the weather, the yelling, the arguments, and the frustration. Every family has problems, this is a fact. Whether or not they express the problems is up to the family. Every Christmas I am reminded of how much the meaning of Christmas has been twisted.

The meaning behind the presents and the holiday seem lost on certain parts of my family. Grandmothers that will spend $200 dollars and up, on one grandchild but only $50 on the other saying that the $50 was more than they wanted to spend. Then there is the constant harassing from people to get certain items instead of what is on their list or people calling Christmas eve to change their minds and that the person who is giving the gift should take the lead in the exchange, mainly because the person receiving the gift is to damn lazy to get up and out and do it themselves.

Then there are the people that get something and instead of saying "thanks, but its the wrong size, I'll just return it" rant on and on about how crappy a gift it was and that it was completely unappreciated. Or like most people do say thanks act like they like it then just return it later. Isn't that what makes the couple of days following Christmas so important in the retail world anyways?

These are just some mild examples of Christmas gone wrong. I feel like this should be on a Dr. Phil episode for god's sake. They no longer care about Christmas, they only care about the gifts and the "free" stuff. Yeah, the gifts are kinda important but to harass and belittle and argue about the subject is completely moronic. For everyone that has these problems I am truly sorry.

This sort of issue should never have been any concern but if you stop to look around at the mall or anywhere, you'll see this behavior. I'm more happy to have the family gathering and the food and time off work and/or school. The weather is also nice but that depends on the person and the severity of the weather.

Personally I like colder weather than the 100+ degree days in summer, but thats just me. Considering everything this attitude towards Christmas is disgusting. I will no longer continue to support it or help propagate such behavior.

To help in solving this I have decided that for everyone that thinks they can create arguments or problems centered around "gifts", they will no longer receive anything but gift cards or cash. Trust me when I say these gift cards will be far less valuable than anything I would buy you. Instead of buying that 40 to 50 dollar item I'll just slap 25 bucks on a card and throw it your way. That is it, you'll have to add money to the card to get anything really nice like I would have bought you. Consider it a punishment for being an ass at Christmas.